Whenever an individual is lost the first and most significant problem is how to locate the individual. Today most individuals who go into wilderness areas carry Global Positioning System (GPS) devices and cellular of satellite phones. If the individual becomes lost or injured they can use the GPS device to determine their longitude and latitude and then call for help on their phone. With the longitude and latitude information the rescue team can quickly locate and recover the individual. Not everyone that enters the wilderness has a GPS device and cellular or satellite phone with them. Should them become lost or injured the authorities are not notified until the individual fails to return at a preselected time to a specific location. The individuals who contact the authorities may or may not know the approximate location of the lost individual. Also, the individual may have chosen to go to an area different from the area where he had indicated that he would be. Locating the individual becomes a very difficult task if the individual has been lost for an extended period of time or lost at sea. Until now the most widely used method of finding the individual was to send out a large number of people and visually search for the person. This is a very tedious and time consuming task. Another problem is that of human error. A member of the search party can easily overlook the lost individual if they are searching a vast area from a plane or boat.
There currently exist a number of locating devices which employ transmitters that broadcast on selected frequencies. There frequencies can be monitored by rescue personnel to assist in locating the lost individuals. These are EPIRB, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, utilized in the maritime industry; ELT, Emergency Locator Transmitter, used in the aircraft industry and PLB, Personal Locator Beacon, used by individuals in recreation of other activities. These devices require power sources such as batteries to operate the transmitters. Some of these devices are not small nor readily transportable by individuals. In addition, these devices are not normally carried by the individual unless the individual knows that they are going to areas where problems may exist.
Other problems exist if the individual becomes buried under snow or other debris. Visual identification is not possible and therefore other techniques must be employed. In these situations trained dogs or thermal sensors are used to located the lost individual. These techniques have their own limitations. Thermal sensors do not have a very long operating range and trained dogs are not always readily available nor can they be used in water environments.
There exists a need for a locating system that can be readily carried by an individual, can operate if the individual is unconscious and can provide identification and medical information to rescue personnel.